A surgical operation or procedure such as a diagnosis or a medical treatment in which a catheter is used has been popularized because it imposes a comparatively low burden on a patient. Such a surgical operation as just mentioned is performed by introducing various instruments beginning with a catheter into a puncture hole or the like formed in an arm, a leg or other site of the patient and extending to an artery. Further, during a surgical procedure, a condition in the blood vessel of the patient is observed on an X-ray contrast image. More particularly, the patient lies on an imaging intensifier, which is a light receiving apparatus which receives X-rays to produce an image, and X-rays are irradiated on the patient from above.
In a surgical procedure such as that described above, a wide variety of medical devices and drugs are used, perhaps involving up to several tens of medical devices and drugs, including throwaway unwoven fabrics (drapes) adapted to be spread on an imaging intensifier, devices and drugs such as an antiseptic used at a preparation stage prior to a surgical procedure (such as a set for drip fusion including a needle and a tube for dripping the heparin of an antithrombotic drug to a patient), surgical gowns for doctors, absorbent cottons, tweezers, forceps and scissors for applying antiseptic, skin cutting surgical knives used after a surgical operation is started, indwelling needles, introducer sheaths and dilators, guide wires for the introducer, syringes, angiographic catheters, guide wires for the angiographic catheter, angiographic agent, microcatheters and so forth which are used for a diagnosis or a medical treatment, PTCA (Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty) guiding catheters (shape for the right side of the heart, shape for the left side and so forth), PTCA guide wires, PTCA balloon catheters, balloon dilating devices (indeflators), stent delivery catheters, hemostatic devices used after an operation or procedure, and beakers, cups and so forth for temporarily keeping various drugs and agents. To help prevent infection, most of these medical devices, drugs and the like are of the throwaway type.
Conventionally, devices such as those described above are prepared by being placed on a table in advance by a nurse. However, because the nurse does not disinfect as carefully as a doctor, the nurse is typically not permitted to touch devices which may directly come in contact with the blood of a patient. Accordingly, somewhat complicated operations or procedures are carried out such as remotely taking out the device from a package using forceps or the like. Also a supplying operation for purchasing and preparing such a great number of devices is quite complicated.
In such a situation as described above, there is a trend that devices for use with a catheter in a surgical operation or procedure are enveloped in a tray or the like to form a kit, thus simplifying the labor associated with purchasing and disposition, while also inhibiting or preventing errors in use and errors in preparation. An example of a package intended to achieve such results is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,296.
Medical devices such as catheters that are elongated in form and adapted to be inserted into the blood vessel of a human being require certain precautionary measures. For example, to prevent air from being admitted into the blood vessel of the human being during use, it is necessary to inject a fluid such as saline (physiological salt solution) or other appropriate fluid into the lumen (the operation is called priming) of the medical device before the device is used. The package disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,296 is configured to accommodate a plurality of catheters. However, it is still necessary to carrying out the priming operation by injecting fluid (saline) into the catheters one by one. It would this be desirable to provide a package and method which are not as susceptible to such shortcomings.